Ticktockman is a band from Seattle formed by Andy Lum, guitar, and Ryan Van Wieringen, voice; Lowry Brock, drummer, Phil Sells, bass, and Morgan “Boon” Bruner, guitar, and just released their debut album. In an interview, Andy talks about the group and the content of this material.

How was this project born?
Ticktockman started 2009. Ryan and I were playing in a couple bands together and we found friendship through our similar tastes in music. We wrote 5 songs together and recorded an EP. We knew we wanted to be loud and progressive, it’s been really amazing to watch us grow as collaborators through the release of our full length this year and the upcoming EP we’ll release at the end of the summer.

What kind of voice does your band have? What is your message?
We want to bring some rock and roll back to Seattle.

Why did you choose themes such as paranoia and depression for yourfirst album?
Paranoia is a big theme in our music, and in dealing with that paranoia I think depression is addressed, but not necessarily a theme. Our songs our inspired by futurist theories, current events, movies, video games, anything that causes our imaginations to run wild. Technology progressing exponentially, government scandal, fraud, economic collapse; these are themes that find our way into our music and I think inspire our aggressive/apocalyptic sound.

The Ticktockman is a dictator who wishes to homogenize society. How doesthis character relate to your musical concept?
It’s in line with our message, we don’t want to feel homogenized by our music scene, our government, anything. We’re sort of taking the “loudest voice wins” approach.

Your music is challenging, yet catchy. How did you achieve that?
I’m glad that’s coming across, because that was one of our goals we started the band. We grew up listening to harder bands like The Blood Brothers and The Mars Volta that write challenging music that still has that pop layer beneath it. It takes longer for people to catch onto it, but I think it’s our obsession with riffs and our focus on melody that helps us achieve that vibe. In the future we’re going to go spacier, but mix up our long progressive writing styles with some shorter and perhaps more electronically based songs.

Within the musical sphere, what would you say you findfrustrating?
Everything. Finding people to support and believe in your art, booking shows, finding real friends within the industry, finding bands you enjoy listening to – everything is frustrating. We try not to focus on these things, but I’m not afraid to admit that you can very quickly become a bitter musician. We’re finding positive light in everything we do – all the negatives fade the second you step on stage.

What do you think of the music scene right now?
Seattle is really tough for a band like us. We love standing out in the “scene”, or whatever you want to call it, but sometimes it’s tough to find bands that would WANT to play with us. Indie folk and electronic are huge here, so we play a lot of awkward lineups. There are awesome new loud bands I keep finding beneath the woodwork so it gets me really excited for this year’s shows in Seattle. We’ve put a lot of time and effort into making our live show as powerful as possible, and I think people will get on board with that.

What makes you feel alive?
Coconut water really puts a bounce in my step.

Talk to me about your creative process. How was your debut album born?
After we finished the EP in 2009, Ryan and I put together a band (Morgan, Phil, and Brock) so we could start playing live shows and involve more minds for the full length. I really like our creative process, I love it actually. Most of our songs are written in duo format, where I actually play drums and Ryan plays guitar. We jam out ideas and piece them together and then work the rest out with the other band members. It has this White Stripes vibe when we’re writing songs together, and when we go into record and the layers start to pile up – the songs have this punk/garage attitude underneath it all.

If you could define yourselves in one word, what would it be?
Dangerous.